try not to get pregnant during a planned bathroom renovation. especially a master bath renovation, adjacent to the place where you sleep...and keep you clothes, and dress, and do laundry, and keep all the stuff that used to be in said renovated space.
i am trying to keep my cool and not have a total control-freak meltdown, but i swear there is drywall dust hiding in the deepest darkest corners of our house, escaping all my attempts to get rid of it, waiting for a day to come out and spread itself all over my bed. and just when you can say "well, this is sort of clean and livable," the next day you come in to find that work has been done to create more dust.
i think what doesn't need to be said here is that, despite my overall emotional calm (with the exception of my weepiness around babies and baby subjects), you can say that i'm having one of those pregnancy freak-outs.
this has been an on-going project for about a month now. and that is a very long time to be put out of your bedroom. to have who-knows-what floating through the air and landing on your sleeping textiles. and to have to cover all of your belongings with sheets and blankets, which then, invite a surface for laying tools and plumbing fixtures on, as if there are not personal belongings under the sheets and blankets. little known fact about me: i have slight fear/obsession with air quality (i hold my breath when i walk behind running cars, or when walking through a cloud of cigarette smoke), and pregnancy has not made that any better. i am convinced that with breathing all of this, that somehow my baby will suffer. that he or she will be born with asthma or underdeveloped lungs or something else of the respiratory sort. toxins. toxins, everywhere.
are these rational fears? probably not. am i a little bit of a control freak? it's not unlikely. but still. that does not create within me some newfound patience or acceptance for things out of my control. it just makes me want to pull my hair out.
so please. pray for me and my sanity. and pray that no other tropical weather systems come through with their 90% humidity, causing everything to take 3 times as long to dry. and pray that this thing is finished by the end of next week. please. please, God, please. please. i am not learning any lessons here. i am only going slowly insane.
in other news, i have an ultrasound on friday. i'm hoping little monks stays modest and doesn't give away whether he or she is a he or she.
i also made a very terrible nutritional decision today. i was caught off-guard when my boss came in to work and immediately grabbed us for a pow-wow. before i knew it, it was 1:15 and i had become more hungry than i can remember being at any one point in my life. my muscles felt similar to the way you might feel while trying to drive a tractor after running 5 miles. i broke out in cold sweats. i don't remember anything that was said to me. i was shaking. as soon as i could i got in my car and drove to the shortest fast-food drive-thru line i could find. which was whataburger. and they were advertising patty melts. and i ordered one for $5.35 (not the meal, mind you--just the sandwich). it was delicious while it lasted. that was 8 hours ago. i am still regretting it.
the end.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
16 weeks and some change
this title was meant to be literal, but then i realized it's pretty metaphoric...
pregnancy has forced us to face some pretty raw truths--not only about our lives, but about life in general. it's pretty apparent, that if there's some aspect of how we live that we're not satisfied with, that we have a very limited amount of time to do something about it. sometimes in life, God allows you just to meander around, choosing this path or that, reversing and turning around. and then other times (like now), you're more like one of 100 sheep trying to fit through a narrow gate, with a border collie nipping at your heels. change--although apparent--is not easily circumnavigated. it's tight, and awkward, and chaotic.
since finding out about the arrival of "little monks," we've been forced to assess our finances, our marriage, our jobs, our geographical location, with whom we surround ourselves, and where we go on sundays (and also the insane amount of stuff we have no storage for in our 20s house with no garage, which has also been daunting, but not nearly as mind-warping...for some of us). all of the other extra fluff in your life is stripped away, slowly, until you're left with the basics: God, family, friends, and health.
there are ways i pictured myself as a mom. but the way you picture it is never the way it turns out. i'm sure even those who planned their pregnancies according to a certain place they were in life would say that having a child was nothing like they thought it would be. i thought that we'd be comfortable enough financially that i could make the choice whether to stay home or go back to work. a part of me even dreamed that i would have had a thriving at-home stationery business. i thought we'd own our own home. and that we'd be close to family.
but even with all the uncertainty we face, there is one thing in which i'm confident: God takes care of us. even when it's hard to see or have absolute faith in--He always does. He is faithful when we are not. kind without a degree of obligation, and loving when we least deserve it. we may not be taken care of in the ways which i would ideally plan. and instead of abundance, it may be just enough to get by. and because of this, i try and quiet the voices that pressure me saying "you have to provide--you have no choice now." i have to do my best, and for that i am accountable. but it's not up to me to be the provider. nor is it up to my husband. the minute we take on that mindset, the power is taken away from God. and when we take that away, we are nothing but frail creatures, thinking that by increasing our income we are more safe, when really, all the added pressure just makes the ground beneath us weaker. we are no safer making $100K a year than we are making $40K a year if we do not place ourselves in God's hands.
that being said, there are certain boundaries that i have always kept, that i will not cross in order to "increase my standard of living." and right now, those are crystal clear to me. i will not sacrifice the basics: God, family, friends, or health. because ultimately, no matter what your values are in life, no matter what you believe, no one at the end of their life is going to say "i wish i'd spent more time climbing the corporate ladder; i wish i'd made more money; i wish i'd gone in on those saturdays when i really needed to. i wish i'd cashed in more vacation days." if they're anything like me (which, i think most people at the end of their life would be surprised at how similar they are) they will say:
"i wish i'd spent more time with the people i loved. i wish i'd spent more time away from the office. i wish i had seen more of the world. i wish i had passed on what i love about life to someone else."
so now, my primary goals as a mom are not to be financially comfortable, to own my own home, or have a thriving business, or any of that. it's to spend time with my family. to not make my children spend too many days counting down the minutes until i'm home. to show them the things that my husband and i love. to teach them to love God and love people. to teach them not to worry, and to spend time outside. to laugh with friends. to take leaps of faith. to go on adventures. to truly love life and be able to pass on the same things to their children.
16 weeks down, 24 to go. we can't wait until you're here, little monks.
pregnancy has forced us to face some pretty raw truths--not only about our lives, but about life in general. it's pretty apparent, that if there's some aspect of how we live that we're not satisfied with, that we have a very limited amount of time to do something about it. sometimes in life, God allows you just to meander around, choosing this path or that, reversing and turning around. and then other times (like now), you're more like one of 100 sheep trying to fit through a narrow gate, with a border collie nipping at your heels. change--although apparent--is not easily circumnavigated. it's tight, and awkward, and chaotic.
since finding out about the arrival of "little monks," we've been forced to assess our finances, our marriage, our jobs, our geographical location, with whom we surround ourselves, and where we go on sundays (and also the insane amount of stuff we have no storage for in our 20s house with no garage, which has also been daunting, but not nearly as mind-warping...for some of us). all of the other extra fluff in your life is stripped away, slowly, until you're left with the basics: God, family, friends, and health.
there are ways i pictured myself as a mom. but the way you picture it is never the way it turns out. i'm sure even those who planned their pregnancies according to a certain place they were in life would say that having a child was nothing like they thought it would be. i thought that we'd be comfortable enough financially that i could make the choice whether to stay home or go back to work. a part of me even dreamed that i would have had a thriving at-home stationery business. i thought we'd own our own home. and that we'd be close to family.
but even with all the uncertainty we face, there is one thing in which i'm confident: God takes care of us. even when it's hard to see or have absolute faith in--He always does. He is faithful when we are not. kind without a degree of obligation, and loving when we least deserve it. we may not be taken care of in the ways which i would ideally plan. and instead of abundance, it may be just enough to get by. and because of this, i try and quiet the voices that pressure me saying "you have to provide--you have no choice now." i have to do my best, and for that i am accountable. but it's not up to me to be the provider. nor is it up to my husband. the minute we take on that mindset, the power is taken away from God. and when we take that away, we are nothing but frail creatures, thinking that by increasing our income we are more safe, when really, all the added pressure just makes the ground beneath us weaker. we are no safer making $100K a year than we are making $40K a year if we do not place ourselves in God's hands.
that being said, there are certain boundaries that i have always kept, that i will not cross in order to "increase my standard of living." and right now, those are crystal clear to me. i will not sacrifice the basics: God, family, friends, or health. because ultimately, no matter what your values are in life, no matter what you believe, no one at the end of their life is going to say "i wish i'd spent more time climbing the corporate ladder; i wish i'd made more money; i wish i'd gone in on those saturdays when i really needed to. i wish i'd cashed in more vacation days." if they're anything like me (which, i think most people at the end of their life would be surprised at how similar they are) they will say:
"i wish i'd spent more time with the people i loved. i wish i'd spent more time away from the office. i wish i had seen more of the world. i wish i had passed on what i love about life to someone else."
so now, my primary goals as a mom are not to be financially comfortable, to own my own home, or have a thriving business, or any of that. it's to spend time with my family. to not make my children spend too many days counting down the minutes until i'm home. to show them the things that my husband and i love. to teach them to love God and love people. to teach them not to worry, and to spend time outside. to laugh with friends. to take leaps of faith. to go on adventures. to truly love life and be able to pass on the same things to their children.
16 weeks down, 24 to go. we can't wait until you're here, little monks.
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